Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 276, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1920 — YOU MAY HAVE TURKEY AND YOU MAY NOT [ARTICLE]

YOU MAY HAVE TURKEY AND YOU MAY NOT

Well, you may be lucky and hav< a turkey dinner Thanksgiving Daj and then again you may have stuf .fed goose, fried chicken or roasi duck. Turkeys are not plentiful in these parts this year and the demand is said to be greater than ever. As a matter of fact the adrcity of turkeys is rather due to the vanishing fowl than to any othei consideration. According to Prof G. A. Phillips, of the poultry husbandry department, Purdue University, turkey raising is becoming an increasingly expensive and questionable problem, the discouraging feature being a disease known as blackhead, the ravages of which among the younger gobblers have sadly depleted the flocks. “It is this disease and not the price that is holding down production,” said Prof. Phillips. The malady is said to be particularly prevalent in New England and only those flocks which are raised in the wild ranges of Texas and Kentucky seemed to be spared. The supply of chickens seems plentiful although the market for dpeks and geese it still a doubtful quantity. Reports from southern Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri indicate that the turkey supply to be matured by Thanksgiving will be lighter than last year, but will be overbalanced by a heavier crop from Texas, Mississippi and other southern states. The army and navy will use fewer turkeys this year than in the. past and the demand from that source will be much lighter. The demand from the army and navy wat said to be a strong factor in the advance of turkey prices during war times.